90 founders among 500 US unicorns were India born: study

New Delhi: A study compiled by Ilya A. Strebulaev, professor of finance at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, shows that out of 1,078 founders across 500 US unicorns, 90 entrepreneurs were born in India, signalling the significant presence of Indian Americans in the country’s startup and tech economy.

India-born founders were followed by the ones from Israel and Canada.

The data pulled together by Strebulaev comes at a time when many Indian-based technology professionals are looking to head back home. Silicon Valley-based tech publication
The Information reported last week on how Indian immigrants in the US were increasingly giving up on their American dream amid visa issues and the lure of a thriving startup industry in India.

It’s not startup founders alone, India-born executives are now running the most powerful tech giants in the US.

Also read:
Parag Agrawal joins growing list of Indian-origin CEOs leading US firms

India’s growing startup ecosystem

A recent report by venture capital fund Orios Venture Partners said Indian startups
raised $42 billion in 2021, up from $11.5 billion in the previous year. The report titled ‘The Indian Tech Unicorn Report 2021’ said India saw 46 unicorns (companies with $1 billion or more in valuation) in 2021 alone.

The newly minted unicorns include ShareChat, Cred, Meesho, Nazara, Moglix, MPL, Grofers (now Blinkit), upGrad, Mamaearth, GlobalBees, Acko, Spinny and others.

India – with 90 unicorns – is the third-largest unicorn hub behind the US (487) and China (301), and ahead of the UK (39).

According to the report, Flipkart was the most valuable unicorn ($37.6 billion after raising $3.6 billion in July 2021), while Mensa Brands was the fastest to turn unicorn (took only 6 months to turn unicorn in November 2021 round after raising the first $50 million round in May 2021).

India has seen four decacorns (companies with a valuation of USD 10 billion and above) so far – Flipkart, Paytm, Byju’s and Oyo Rooms, the report stated.

The report also added that the year 2021 was a landmark year for Indian startups going public.

In the public markets, Zomato has the highest market capitalisation ($14.8 billion), among the listed Indian startups, followed by Nykaa ($13.5 billion) and Freshworks ($6.9 billion), the report added.

Bengaluru was the
‘Unicorn Hub’ with 18 unicorns emerging from the city in 2021 and 35 in all. It also happens to be the seventh largest unicorn city in the world. Delhi claimed the second spot with 13 unicorns while Mumbai boasts 11 unicorns in the same period. Interestingly, Mumbai saw a 3.2x increase in the total number of unicorns in 2021. Chennai had two unicorns emerge in 2021 while Jaipur joined the list with CarDekho.

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